Sunday, February 28, 2016

It is not that common to get three great acts
for a mere tenner and to have an evening of mainly ambient electronica, which
made that gig special from the word go

The evening started with the not-so-ambient
electropop duo ‘Field Harmonics’ consisting of Bryony Williams and Rob Glover
aided by drummer Matthew Pinfield.

Highly energetic they started off the evening
nicely with a tight set that was very well presented. Bryonies vocals sounded
beautiful and thrown against the rhythmic music offered a nice contrast to the
beats.

Field Harmonics played new tracks such as their
single ‘Girl’ from their forthcoming album ‘Corners’ as well as stuff from
their 2013 album ‘Walls’ and with a set of 30 minutes they left the audience
wanting more.

With the second support act, Rocky Steps, a
one-man project, we were moving into the ambient part of the evening. Using
backdrops and dense music laden with samples of film dialogues that were both
rhythmically appealing as well as melodic, Rocky steps showed that music can be
somewhat sparse yet rich in content.

Tangerine Dream member Ulrich Schnauss and his
visual artist Nat Urazmatova entered the stage a short time later and the
performance and visuals were a match made in heaven. The sounds were crystal
clear and the moods of the music was amplified beautifully through rich and
diverse visuals ranging from landscapes to cityscapes, from people dancing in
an arid landscape to bullet trains.

Ulrichs music is ambient yet very much alive
and driving at times and very contemporary sounding. The trademark
arpeggiator/sequencer-driven sounds of classic Tangerine Dream tracks is almost
completely absent or only sparsely noticeable, which will allow future TD
albums to have a 21st century feel to them.

The evening ended with a track from Tangerine
Dreams ‘Quantum Key’ album and with his amazing talent the legacy of the great
Tangerine Dream seems in safe hands.

Born in 1977, Ulrich will have missed a great
deal of the groundbreaking work of TD and was a child when Edgar Froese-led TD
pepped up movies with amazing soundtracks and not being bound by what came
before him Tangerine Dream with Ulrich on board won’t likely try to re-hash old
compositions, which in the long run can only be a good thing.